The Carolina grasshopper is a banded-winged grasshopper, one of the subdivisions of the short-horned grasshopper family. Like most other band-winged grasshoppers, it has strongly marked hindwings, and it might be mistaken for a butterfly. The Carolina grasshopper's outspread pale-yellow-bordered, black hindwings look like a mourning cloak butterfly.
It is frequently seen in dusty, open habitats like dirt roads and vacant lots.
Like other banded-winged grasshoppers, it often makes a crackling, buzzing, or ticking sound as it flies, and the pronotum (shieldlike structure between head and wings) is keeled lengthwise (ridged like a rooftop), and its hind edge is strongly triangular, pointed toward the tail. There is no "spur" on the "throat" (as in the spur-throated grasshoppers). The face is fairly vertical (not very slanted).
Learn more about this and other short-horned grasshoppers on their group page.
