AbyssBox: Meet creatures from the deep in this high-pressure aquarium.

According to the BBC, it is not just American filmmaker James Cameron who will be able to observe sea creatures that inhabit the depths of the oceans. The Océanopolis Aquarium, located in the city of Brest, France, has developed a small aquarium capable of keeping some of these living things that would not withstand surface atmospheric pressure.

The AbyssBox, as it was called, is a kind of tank with only 16 liters and 180 bar of pressure, equivalent to the pressure found at 1, 800 meters deep. The aquarium has a small window through which visitors can see marine species such as the small crab Segonzacia mesatlantica and the shrimp Mirocaris fortunate .

Although quite limited at the moment, the developers of the project hope one day to be able to build aquariums of this much larger size, which would allow scientists around the world to study deep-sea dwellers for longer periods of time, something simply impossible today.

Sources: BBC, Wired and Océanopolis