Johann Ernst Hebenstreit (January 15, 1703 – December 5, 1757) was a German physician and naturalist who was born in Neustadt an der Orla.
He was a student at the University of Leipzig, where in 1728 he earned his philosophy degree, and in 1729 his medical doctorate. 1731 he became a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina.
In 1731 he was appointed by Augustus II to head an expedition to Africa to collect natural history specimens and to procure wild animals for the royal menagerie. After Augustus' death in 1733, the mission was discontinued, and Hebenstreit returned to Leipzig as a professor of medicine and anatomy. During the turmoil of the 1849 May Uprising in Dresden the specimens collected from the African expedition were lost.
Among Hebenstreits' numerous written works was an influential 1751 study of forensic medicine called Anthropologia Forensis sistens medici circa rempublicam, and an illustrated catalogue involving the collection of minerals, fossils, and gems assembled by Leipzig banker Johann Christoph Richter (1689–1751) called Museum Richterianum continens fossilia animalia, vegetabilia marina. Carl Linnaeus named the plant genus Hebenstreitia in honor of Hebenstreit.