It would have to have taken an insanely long time. Most snakes that display caudal luring have a normal tail that, at most, has taken on a different color to attract prey. In order to develop the large bulb and spikes, it would definitely have taken quite a few generations, and likely just started when one snake had a slightly spikier tail. But I think, if I had to wager a guess, that the behavior came first; the tail movements are actually quite similar to other snake species and I think that the spines grew to make the luring even more eye catching.
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It is still hard to comprehend how this can happen, all by coincidence. At least it must have taken a very long time, perhaps millions of years. I mean, the snakes previously were also able to survive, so it wouldn't be a must to have this feature in order to survive, just a little advantage.
It would be really helpful to find fossils of snakes with different degrees of developement of this feature. But thats not so easy, I guess.
True, the desert isn't especially conducive to fossilization, so finding the missing links here could prove challenging. But I'll bet there are a few out there is we look hard enough.