We know that we are forbidden to eat certain food because they are tahor, ritually impure. Today's daf asks how much must we consume to be held liable? We know that usually, we must consume at least a ke'zayit, an olive-bulk, to be held liable. Rav Yehuda teaches that Rav teaches that this same principle applies for eating sheratzim, creeping animals. But we learned in Vayikra (11:42) that eating sheratzim is forbidden!
Rabbi Yosei bar Rabbi Chanina presented Rabbi Yochanan with another passage from Vayikra (20:25) to help us understand how we could eat animals that are considered to be ritually defiled. We learn that a creature the size of an adasha, a lentil, is enough to consider a creature to be ritually defiled. Nazir (52) teaches that Vayikra (11:31, 32) states that coming into full contact with such an animal will cause ritual impurity, and everything coming into contact with it will also become impure. The Gemara says that such a creature might be the size of a chomet, possibly a lizard, when it is first born.
Vayikra (11:30) tells us that there are eight types of crawling creatures listed as tahor. Rashi and other say that the chomet, is a snail. This would explain our Gemara's suggestion that the snail is the size of a lentil when it is first born. Rav Sa'adia Ga'on and others say that the chomet is a chameleon.
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