  The objective of this paper is to present the main characteristics of a
wide-field MFAA precursor that we envisage to be built at the SKA site in South
Africa. Known as MANTIS (the Mid-Frequency Aperture Array Transient and
Intensity-Mapping System), this ambitious instrument will represent the next
logical step towards the MFAA based SKA telescope. The goal is to use
innovative aperture array technology at cm wavelengths, in order to demonstrate
the feasibility of deploying huge collecting areas at modest construction and
operational cost. Such a transformative step is required in order to continue
the exponential progress in radio telescope performance, and to make the
ambitious scale of the SKA Phase 2 a realistic near-time proposition.
