When creating an Element with a ref from inside of a constructor an error is thrown in production mode, but not in dev mode.

Here is a minimal sample:
https://jsfiddle.net/84v837e9/35/

An error, "Only a ReactOwner can have refs", should happen in dev and production modes.

This is happening in React 15.4
ReactDebugCurrentFrame.getCurrentStack =
          ReactDebugCurrentStack.getStackAddendum;
      }
      try {
        renderedElement = this._renderValidatedComponentWithoutOwnerOrContext();
      } finally {
        ReactCurrentOwner.current = null;
        if (__DEV__) {
          ReactDebugCurrentFrame.getCurrentStack = null;
        }
      }
    } else {
      renderedElement = this._renderValidatedComponentWithoutOwnerOrContext();
    }
    invariant(
      
      renderedElement === null ||
        renderedElement === false ||
        React.isValidElement(renderedElement),
      '%s.render(): A valid React element (or null) must be returned. You may have ' +
        'returned undefined, an array or some other invalid object.',
      this.getName() || 'ReactCompositeComponent',
    );
    return renderedElement;
  },
  /**
   * Lazily allocates the refs object and stores `component` as `ref`.
   *
   * @param {string} ref Reference name.
   * @param {component} component Component to store as `ref`.