Ezra Townsend Cresson, also Ezra Townsend senior (18 June 1838, in Byberry – 19 April 1926, in Swarthmore) was an American entomologist who specialised in the Hymenoptera order of insects. He wrote Synopsis of the families and genera of the Hymenoptera of America, north of Mexico Philadelphia: Paul C. Stockhausen, Entomological printer (1887) and many other works. His son Ezra Townsend, Jr. (1876–1948) was also an entomologist but a specialist in Diptera. Cresson also documented many new species including Nomada texana.