well, photo's can't really tell you what species it is but to me, that really is not important, the important thing here to me is, the carving. The carving looks "real" to me, that is to say, hand carved but that could wrong as well, if it is machine carved, it's very well done. It would not surprise me if it is mahogany though it does look like walnut from pic's. Bottom line? put a walnut stain on mahogany or even poplar and in pic's it looks like walnut!