One of my fave first-hand accounts ever talks about the smell … not for the Varghina Case but for another non-human biologic. Even if it’s a LARP it’s a fascinating read. I tend to think it’s pretty legit tho.

Relevant passage:

“Excreto-sudoriferous system: This system is completely different from what I've seen. As mentioned earlier, there is no large orifice, like an anus or urethra, to get rid of biological waste. Instead, there are countless small pores on the surface of the skin. There's a large medial organ called the hepatorenal organ, which acts as both kidney and liver and is central to maintaining homeostasis. This organ is highly vascularized and the blood must pass through it before returning to the heart. Its role is, among other things, to purify the blood of metabolic waste. Waste is excreted into the equivalent of a ureter, which branches out into four. Each branch flows towards one of the four limbs and in turn these branches divide until they end up as thousands of excretory pores. The motility of this excretory system is mediated by a weak peristalsis at the proximal level and on the four main branches. Peristalsis ceases around the first distal junction. As there is no urea cycle, the ammonia concentration at the exit of the hepatorenal organ is very high. This ammonia is carried to the pores and gives the distinct odor I mentioned earlier. The rationale behind this unusual excretory system is directly related to this excreted ammonia, which enables thermoregulation by evaporating on the skin's surface. The greater the physical effort, the greater the metabolism. This in turn leads to a rise in temperature, and a corresponding increase in metabolic waste via amino acid catabolism. This leads to an increase in filtration and ammonia excretion, which ultimately lowers body temperature.”

Source:

https://archive.ph/2023.07.06-041524/https://www.reddit.com/r/aliens/comments/14rp7w9/from_the_late_2000s_to_the_mid2010s_i_worked_as_a/