My turtle ate the other turtle?!?

You always take a chance when keeping most turtles together. I have heard many times of cases where they seemed fine together and then aggression breaks out. Unfortunately it is just a chance you take when putting them together, and turtles being turtles will never pass up a free meal.

First, not all turtles eat the same things, just like some humans are vegetarian and others arent. Shrimp is the main diet of some species. Shrimp is also a main contributer to one version of shell disease. Turtles are pretty efficient in using their food- they really don't need very much, so its OK to let them go a bit hungry once in a while- like when trying to force them to change foods. The 'nutritious pellets' may taste horrible to the turtle (they DO have taste buds) and may not be as healthy as you think, especially after the tradgedy with the harmful catfood and dogfood, I dont know if id trust any type of petfood. It may be worthwhile to do a bit of reseach on them before you start to depend on them alone. In general, live or fresh food is healthier and variety is important. Try offering a few pellets along with appropriate live/fresh food and see what kinds of results you get. It would be more helpful to know the species of your turtle to give you more information. :)

It could be cannibalism. Turtles too small or kept in too small conditions often prey on each other. RES (red eared sliders) are also territorial and can dominate other turtles smaller than it, so one turtle may have killed the other due to dominance.

Please buy turtles the same length next time. Don't trail an error again.

Bigger turtles always show dominance

this is just an extremely hardcore case of that

It can be a case of cannibalism.

Turtles are very territorial and they should NEVER be kept in the same tank, especially if they are different genders, or in your case, different sizes.

They tend to get agressive and fight over territory, and chances are, the tank they were in were not big enough for the both of them.

I'm very sorry for your loss, but hopefully you learned your lesson this time.

I like turtles.

Im sure it cud be a Cat. Be careful. 4 the other turtle !

one probably died from a freak accident and the other one saw the dead turtle and ate it

The "other" one was dead, so the survivor chowed down! It happens in the animal world!

Maybe one just decided that earl had to die