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
/**
   * Filters the context object to only contain keys specified in
   * `contextTypes`
   *
   * @param {object} context
   * @return {?object}
   * @private
   */
  _maskContext: function(context) {
    var Component = this._currentElement.type;
    var contextTypes = Component.contextTypes;
    if (!contextTypes) {
      return emptyObject;
    }
    var maskedContext = {};
    for (var contextName in contextTypes) {
      maskedContext[contextName] = context[contextName];
    }
    return maskedContext;
  },
  /**
   * Filters the context object to only contain keys specified in
   * `contextTypes`, and asserts that they are valid.
   *
   * @param {object} context
   * @return {?object}
   * @private
   */
  _processContext: function(context) {
    var maskedContext = this._maskContext(context);