Comment by nkozyra
5 hours ago
Honestly you're lucky there were any leaves left.
You must have caught it within two or three hours after its arrival.
In the US we have similar hawk moths; the tomato hornworm also looks like a hummingbird when it reaches maturity.
Once I started leaving just the ones with parasitoid wasp eggs on their backs in the garden, I completely stopped having problems with these guys.
The "hornworm" caterpillars leave amazing poops behind. They look like (not so) little green grenades.
Their moths are important pollinators of some nice native flowers.