That is NOT a gypsy moth. Gypsy catapillars are small and brown and create huge silken nests in tree branches and do tons of damage. This is a LUNA moth catapillar!

No this is not a hornworm catapillar.

Naw - just creepy LOL

Great up close & real as a learning experience for your kids. Just glad it is you & not me up close to that thing LOL

Wait, now that I see those orange things on the back, it is not a Luna, Here is alink

http://lifecycle.onenessbecomesus.com/caterpillar.htm

It is a cecropia moth.

Oops should have read through the posts your figured it out already.

Beautiful! We have those moths here but I havent seen them in the caterpillar stage. Thank you for posting.

Sorry to say that looks like the tomato worm we just had on our tomatoes! Nasty!

http://www.quiltingboard.com/t-145479-1.htm

here is the luna moth as a caterpillar we found.

Cool!! We used to get silk worms for the kids to watch...it was so fun watching them eat the mulberry leaves and then go into coccoon. Only problem was, to get the silk you have to kill the moth while it is in the coccoon. I never did that...I just let them come out as moths. I couldn't kill them!!

Lol, we didn't really figure out what it was at first either. :)

I've never seen those before. I've heard of them. I know my kids are having a blast doing this. I don't think I could kill them to get the silk either!