This species was first described in 1867 by the Austrian zoologist Camill Heller, and was named in honour of the Scottish minister and natural historian John Walker, a professor at the University of Edinburgh.

[2] Walkeria tuberosa is a colonial bryozoan and forms small clusters developing from a thread-like stolon that creeps across the substrate.

[2] Walkeria tuberosa was first described from the Adriatic Sea and is also found in the western, central and eastern Mediterranean, including between Crete and Turkey.

It is also sporadically found in the Red Sea and the Indo-Pacific region, including Malaysia and New Zealand.

When the tufts of zooids grow among a crowded community of other organisms, its presence is very difficult to detect, but where it grows alone, on an otherwise bare surface, it is easier to spot; such a surface might be a thallus of red alga such as Peyssonnelia sp., of a green alga such as Codium sp.