We have investigated experimentally the oxidation of ethane in a perfectly stirred reactor in the temperature range 870-1080 K and for fuel-air stoichiometric ratio ranging from 0.25 to 1.27. The concentrations of the main molecular species have been meassured by probe sampling and GC analysis. These experimental results have been compared with predictions of three popular detailed kinetic mechanisms previously presented in the literature. A reasonable agreement between the experimental results and the model predictions has been found for almost all the species and the mechanisms. The only relevant exception is acetylene, which is greatly overpredicted by one of the mechanisms for all the investigated conditions. Parametric sensitivity analysis has been used for updating such a mechanism in order to improve the agreement with our experimental observations.