Challenge #16 Stumper: In 1991 William Fenical, a chemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, went to the Philippines to hunt for organisms that might provide medically useful compounds. He found a two pound mass of Diazona chinensis in a cave 100 feet below the ocean surface. Back in San Diego he isolated, from its tissue, a chemical that killed colon cancer cells in laboratory tests. Is Diazona chinensis a plant or an animal? And, to what taxonomic group of organisms does it belong? Answer: An animal. A simple, marine invertebrate tunicate - an ascidian Correct answer received from: Peter and Merridy Hance, Jason Coffer.