Sharks have weathered numerous mass extinctions. Will they survive us?

-- Shares Facebook Twitter Reddit Email Sharks have undeservedly earned a bad reputation, striking fear in the hearts of many, who often describe oceans as "infested" with the creatures. But it's not technically possible for them to infest their own home. Indeed, sharks have roamed the oceans for 450 million years, producing giants like the Megalodon, the Otodus and the Ptychodus.

For many ages of world history, sharks could be regarded as the unchallenged masters of the ocean. With such robust evolutionary versatility, these cartilaginous fishes have survived not one, not two, but five mass extinctions in Earth's history. On geological timescales, nature regularly goes on killing sprees , wiping out countless species forever.

But sharks have surprising resilience and have weathered the Late Devonian Extinction, which ended the "golden age" of sharks; the Permian-Triassic mass extinction that wiped out 90 percent of marine species; and even the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction, which famously wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs about 66 million years ago. Despite how resilient sharks may seem, though, they may not be able to dodge the fate of the dodo or the passenger pigeon. Human activity, which seems to be driving a sixth mass extinction, is making it harder and harder for them to survive.

It begs the question: Will sharks be able to outlive us? Sharks have been getting a raw deal from humans for a long time. Almost sixty years before the classic 1975 creature feature "Jaws" .