Sir John Burton Cleland CBE (22 June 1878 – 11 August 1971) was a renowned Australian naturalist, microbiologist, mycologist and ornithologist.

He was Professor of Pathology at the University of Adelaide and was consulted on high-level police inquiries, such as the famous Taman Shud Case in 1948 and later.

[6] Cleland led a University of Adelaide anthropological expedition to Nepabunna Mission in the northern Flinders Ranges in May 1937, whose members included Charles P. Mountford as ethnologist and photographer, botanist Thomas Harvey Johnston, virologist Frank Fenner, and others.

[7] Cleland was the pathologist on the infamous Taman Shud Case, in which an unidentified man was discovered dead on a beach 1 December 1948.

[citation needed] Cleland became increasingly interested in wildlife conservation and served as commissioner of the Belair National Park in 1928 and as chairman in 1936–65.