Do dead human bodies have a particular smell?

I'm working on a story where there is a crime scene where the protagonist (who has a superhuman sense of smell) notices a scent that smells like human corpses due to their abilities. I'm wondering how exactly to describe this smell, and if there is any way that human bodies smell different from those of other animals (e.g., is it something people who work with real-life murder cases notice from experience?)

I know many animals have very strong reactions to dead members of their own species that they don't have to dead members of other species (and humans do have a distinct scent), but at the same time the human sense of olfaction is terrible and it's very possible that, say, a bloodhound could tell the difference between a dead human and a dead deer but humans can't. Unfortunately it is not possible to interview a bloodhound to get their experience on the subject. At the same time it's possible that there is a difference and people only notice and react to it on a subconscious level, similar to what has been found with other human body odors. So a protagonist with super smell might smell something different, but it would be difficult for a human writer without super smell to articulate it to a human audience without super smell.

I've been around dead human bodies in a med lab, but that seems kind of unintuitive as the cadavers there are all treated with preservatives and hence smell like preservatives, and anyone who has been around preserved bodies of any species will tell you that the smell of preservatives is so potent and clings to everything it will overshadow the odor of anything else.

posted over 4 years ago

user2352714‭

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