What is the network 169.254.0.0/16 used for in the routing table on a virtual machine?

What is the network 169.254.0.0/16 used for in the routing table on a virtual machine (guest: Debian; host: Lubuntu)? How can I find out some or all the network interfaces assigned with IP addresses in the range? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv4#Special-use_addresses shows the network is "subnet". Are subnet IP addresses used effectively the same as private IP addresses? Thanks The routing table on the host Lubuntu is $ route -n Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 0.0.0.0 192.168.1.1 0.0.0.0 UG 600 0 0 wlp5s0 192.168.1.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 600 0 0 wlp5s0 192.168.122.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 virbr0 The routing table on the guest Debian is: $ route -n Kernel IP routing table Destination Gateway Genmask Flags Metric Ref Use Iface 0.0.0.0 192.168.122.1 0.0.0.0 UG 0 0 0 ens3 169.254.0.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.0.0 U 1000 0 0 ens3 192.168.122.0 0.0.0.0 255.255.255.0 U 0 0 0 ens3