When it is fully grown at end of summer it becomes very aggressive, and will literally chase me!! making a very audible barking type sound. One can go through a large ripe tomato (or amaryllis bulb) in one feeding--bites look like large birds are destroying except the hole has smooth sides, not jagged like beak marks.
This appears to be an eastern lubber grasshopper, Romalea microptera, the largest grasshopper in your neck of the woods. See http://tinyurl.com/nyu4sr for more information.
suunto, that indeed is the creature I am battling! Thank you for information.
