Steve Latham said:

I live in southeastern Virginia. I've got your basic house vegetable garden
with Tomatoes and Peppers. I've also planted a couple of Eggplant and
some Pattypan Squash (acorn squash to some). The Pattypan has fairly
large leaves with little spikes on them, as do the stems. But I came out
yesterday and something had eaten most of the leaves of one plant, and
some off the other.

Some of the leaves were down to the stem (which is cylindrical and
hollow).
The Pattypans themselves were not eaten (though something has chewed
on a couple of them a bit).

Also, oddly enough, I had some sunflower seeds that I noticed sprouting,
so I went ahead and put them in the ground. They've been growing well
(the largest is only about 8 inches tall though). But today I just went out
and something has eaten the leaves off them as well.

In my experience, rabbits don't bother squash much except to eat the
flowers, sometimes.

But groundhogs will munch squash leaves down to stems. And they will
munch on the fruit.

Deer will go after squash plants, too.

Bugs and slugs will usually leave tattered, lacey leaves behind rather than
complete anihilation of leaves.
--
Pat in Plymouth MI ('someplace.net' is comcast)

Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
(attributed to Don Marti)