Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti (December 4, 1735 - February 17, 1805) was an Austrian naturalist.

Laurenti is considered the auctor of the class Reptilia (reptiles) through his authorship of Specimen Medicum, Exhibens Synopsin Reptilium Emendatam cum Experimentis circa Venena (1768) on the poisonous function of reptiles and amphibians. This was an important book in herpetology, defining thirty kinds of reptiles. Carolus Linnaeus's Systema Naturae of 1758 defined only ten kinds. In 1768, Laurenti also published a manuscipt titled Il Dragone (The Dragon) describing the blind salamander (amphibian): Proteus anguinus, purportedly collected from cave waters in Slovenia (or possibly western Croatia); this description represented the first published account of a cave animal in the western world.