Walter Salzburger (born 1 January 1975) is an Austrian-Swiss zoologist and evolutionary biologist and Professor at the Zoological Institute, Department of Environmental Sciences, of the University of Basel in Switzerland.

[1] The research of Walter Salzburger focuses on the understanding of organismal diversification in general and the evolutionary phenomena of adaptive radiation and explosive speciation in particular.

[2] Salzburger's main organismal study systems are the exceptionally diverse adaptive radiations of cichlid fishes in East Africa, and in particular the cichlid fauna of Lake Tanganyika.

[3][4] In addition, his group has worked on vision in deep-sea fishes,[5] among many other topics.