Not at all.

Many animals cache food for the winter.

Many animals will fight to the death to defend their territory, mates, or offspring.

Some animals cultivate crops, e.g, ants growing fungus.

Many animals actively forage to feed their offspring.

Those are hardwired instincts, not a conscious reflection on the fact that in the future things might be worse.

In fact they are limited to a specific behavior, like storing food, and not generalized across all things that could happen.

Fighting to defend territory or feeding offspring are strategies that prove successful for the survival of the species, not tied to consciousness of the future.

For example, zebras run away from lions, but only when lions chase them. They are perfectly fine with lions sitting around if all they do is sitting. They don’t think: “at some point that lion will stand up and chase me”

How on earth do you state all these things as facts? You are confident about the mental states of zebra? Why?

Squirrels bury acorns they could eat that day so they can have food in the winter instead.

Squirrels don't even remember where they've buried the acorns. They just bury and dig, and with enough squirrels involved it works out. Its an instinct that happens to contribute to survival.

They sacrifice something - an abundant summer acorn - today to get something better - a scarce winter acorn - in the future. It's a clear counter example to the claim above.

Except they don't mean to do anything. They're carrying an acorn, they pass a juicy spot, they feel compelled to stick the acorn in the spot. At no time does the squirrel think "I'll sacrifice this food now for food later!" So it's not reasonable to call it a sacrifice except metaphorically?

How on earth do you know that?

And what difference does 'knowing' make? Do they make the sacrifice or not? They clearly do.

By reading, being educated. Its far to late to be mystified about how animals work. Its a couple of centuries of study by now, about their instincts and behaviors.

And recall, 'understanding the concept of sacrifice' was the topic.

So you know how animals work! Excellent. Please build me a machine that does the same, to demonstrate your understanding.

It can be slow and inefficient to make up for lack of equivalent materials and mechanisms. A simulated one will do.

Or just explain how it works. I've been looking forward to reading that book. You'd sell some copies.

Also, a nitpick: it's a few millennia of studies by now. For example you can read Aristotle on the topic from 1700+ years ago.

As it happens, not only do they remember, they actually organize their nut storage in geographic chunks: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/squirrels-can-sto...

I didn't mean animals don't do sacrifices. I meant they don't do sacrifices for imaginary things.

How do you know what the ant imagines it is dying for, when it dies for its colony?