Final answer:
The Golden Lancehead viper shares common ancestors with other species and did not evolve from a 'previous form' with a different name. The lancelet is an early offshoot on the chordate line but is not the direct ancestor of snakes. The evolutionary lineage of snakes includes various extinct reptiles leading to present-day species.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Golden Lancehead viper did not evolve directly from an ancestral species that could be called by a different name as such. Instead, it shares common ancestors with other species.
In terms of evolutionary biology, the lancelet is an early offshoot on the chordate line, which is the phylum that includes vertebrates like snakes, but is not a direct ancestor of the Golden Lancehead. The lancelet represents a more primitive stage of evolution, existing before the evolution of sharks, and well before the divergence of reptiles and birds, which includes species like snakes and ostriches, respectively.
In such evolutionary discussions, it is important to consider that the Golden Lancehead viper - as with all modern species of snake - evolved from ancestral reptiles over millions of years.
This evolutionary process would have included various extinct species, adapting and changing to their environments over geological time scales, leading to the diversity of snake species we see today, including the Golden Lancehead. Therefore, it is not accurate to say that this viper evolved from a 'previous form' that was called something different in the way cultural artifacts might be renamed over time.