Have you ever wondered why it’s not possible to bring ultra-deep water creatures to the surface to be studied and viewed in captivity? The reason is that the huge changes in pressure kill animals before they can even get them aboard boats, but the “Abyss Box,” is changing that.

The “Abyss Box,” is a specially designed container/aquarium that can maintain extreme pressures while bringing animals up from the deep. The volume is small at only 16 litres, but scientists are hoping it can be scaled up in the future to house larger animals.

These revolutionary boxes should make it possible for scientists to study creatures long-term that can rarely even be seen.

“We want such basic information as the length of life of a deep-sea animal,” explained Dr Bruce Shillito, a marine biologist at the Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris.

“No-one really knows how long they live, so by keeping them this way we can get that information. Of course, its information in captivity but it’s better than no information at all,” he told BBC News.

Dr. Shillito is known for his successful retrieval of a live fish from 2,300 meters, but unlike the Abyss Box, the device he used was not meant to sustain it long-term.

The box is built to accommodate water changes as well as additions as food to keep animals alive.

Something edible, probably blue mussel, will be put through an exchange chamber. “It’s like the astronauts moving in and out of the space station,” said Dr Shillito.

Due to the extreme pressure inside, viewing is accomplished through a rather tiny window, and with all the equipment necessary to make it work, the box weighs in at a staggering 600kg.

These boxes will be used to study the life-cycles of deep-sea animals, and their ability to move between depths to cope with global warming.

“It is well established knowledge that climate warming is causing changes in the distribution or organisms at the global scale,” said Dr Sven Thatje, a colleague of Dr Shillito’s from the University of Southampton, UK.

“Many species inhabiting the oceans have already gone cooler by moving to higher latitudes where they have not been found before.”

“We propose that moving to greater depths is an ignored response mechanism that allows species to escape undesirable warm surface waters. Changes in the depth distribution of species will lead to major changes in ocean ecosystems.”

The Abyss Box is expected to be on display in April of this year.

Via: BBC News