Basil Derek Wragge Morley was born in Cambridge, and most noted for his work on the study of ants. From 1946-1949, he held the Macaulay Fellowship for Genetical Research at Edinburgh University. In 1948, he was an invitation lecturer at the Institute for Social Anthropology at Oxford. His research included Genetics, Social Behaviour of animals, and the behaviour of agricultural pests. During the Second World War he investigated insect pests for the Ministry of Agriculture.

Derek Wragge-Morley wrote several books on Ants, including "The Ant World" (1953), and a film on the subject called "Ant Warfare". He also wrote a book about computing machines, entitled "Automatic Data Processing", which was published in 1961 by Her Majesty's Stationery Office for the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and acted as a scientific consultant to a film about the application of computers in industry and the pros and cons of installing such systems, entitled "This Automaton Age".

He later became an independent scientific consultant, who served as Scientific Editor for both Picture Post Magazine and the Financial Times.

He married Monica Strutt in 1952, and had four children.