falco

Falco is a term with several distinct meanings. In biology, Falco is a genus of birds of prey in the family Falconidae. The genus comprises about 60 species, including the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus), the merlin (Falco columbarius), and the common kestrel (Falco tinnunculus). Falcons are diurnal hunters with pointed wings, strong beaks, and sharp talons. They are distributed worldwide and noted for high-speed flight; the peregrine falcon’s stoop is renowned for its speed.

Falco is also the stage name of Johann Hölzel (1957–1998), an Austrian singer and musician who achieved international fame in the 1980s. Best known for Rock Me Amadeus (1985), the track topped charts in multiple countries, including the United States. Falco’s work spans pop, rock, and electronic genres, and he remains one of the era’s most recognizable European performers.

Falco is an open-source runtime security project for Linux and cloud-native environments. It was created by Sysdig to detect anomalous behavior by monitoring system calls and events. Falco is commonly used to secure Kubernetes clusters and container deployments by applying user-defined rules and alerting on suspicious activity.

In popular culture, Falco appears as a fictional character: Falco Lombardi, a starfighter pilot in Nintendo's Star Fox video game series.

As a surname or given name, Falco is used in various cultures and languages.